by Sarah Hawke
Julian grimaced as he turned to Tahira. “Sir, I can’t—”
“I will protect her myself,” Crowe said. “I can coordinate our defenses through her—we’ll stay in the temple and relay orders through her bond. But you need to be on the wall.”
“We’ll take Garadros,” Serrane said. “I can drop you off on the way to the Lodge.”
Julian’s jaw clenched, and she could tell he wasn’t buying it. They had discussed this decision many times, but now that the moment was here, he clearly didn’t want to leave Tahira’s side. Serrane sympathized, personally and strategically. The Eternal Priestess was the most important person in Highwind right now, second only to Jorem. But unlike the Wyrm Lord, she didn’t have an amazon warrior and a Senosi Huntress to defend her—or impenetrable scales, for that matter.
If I were attacking this city, my first and only goal would be to find the source of the Silver Fist’s power and destroy it. Breaching the walls would be an afterthought.
“No harm will come to her, Julian, I swear it,” Crowe said, clapping the younger man’s shoulder. “Remember what we talked about in the crypt.”
Julian tossed a final glance at Tahira. His eyes were filled with the same knightly overprotectiveness that Serrane had always found slightly patronizing but also irresistibly charming. He would gladly put his life on the line for anyone here. He was, without a doubt, the best paladin—the best man—she had ever met.
“Go, Julian,” Tahira said with a tight but determined smile. “I will be fine.”
He took a deep breath and nodded.
“I’ll make sure the defenses hold, sir.”
“I know you will,” Crowe said. “Now get moving.”
“Escar watch over you both,” Julian said. He nodded to Serrane, and the two of them dashed toward the door. A bitter wall of cold air greeted them the moment they stepped outside, and if anything, the storm might have actually been worse than it looked out the windows. There may not have been enough snowfall to call it a true blizzard yet, but the fog was so thick she could barely see the wall surrounding the temple even though it was only twenty yards away.
“My archers won’t be able to hit a damn thing!” she said, pulling her cloak around her body as a blast of wind threatened to rip it from her shoulders.
“Their ships won’t be able to see the city from the river, either,” Cassel said. “And I doubt the fires will last long.”
He pointed past the courtyard walls into the city where they could barely make out some flickering flames from the Temple District to the south. Julian was right: if the enemy wyvern riders were hoping to burn Highwind to the ground tonight, they were going to be disappointed. Even magical flames wouldn’t spread far in this mess. But the Inquisitrix had to be smart enough to know that…
Shaking her head, Serrane raced across the temple courtyard to the Silver Fist stables. Most of the horses within weren’t going anywhere thanks to the storm, but there were still plenty of grooms scurrying about. Garadros didn’t have his own stall here, but he was waiting for her next to the barn. The wyvern’s yellow eyes were frantically flicking about the sky, and every few moments he would let out a strange half-whining, half-chittering sound.
“It’s all right,” Serrane soothed, reaching out to the Aether and touching the beast’s mind. He was clever enough to understand what was happening; he could hear his fellow wyverns screeching in the distance, and he was already anticipating a fight. The cold didn’t seem to be bothering him in the slightest, though the wind would be a different story once they actually lifted off.
“On second thought, maybe I should walk,” Julian said, shielding his face from the snow with his gauntlet. “Are you sure he won’t crash into something?”
“If the enemy riders can fly, so can we,” Serrane said. “Come on!”
Garadros lowered his head for her to climb into the saddle, and she took Julian’s hand and pulled him up with her. His armored, bulky frame felt a lot different sitting behind her than Valuri’s sleek Senosi figure, and she wasn’t overly fond of how freezing his metal gauntlets felt when they clutched onto her bare waist. Thankfully, the wyvern didn’t seem the least bit impeded by the extra weight, and he rushed forward and leapt into the air as easily as ever.
Holding steady once he was airborne proved considerably more difficult. Serrane crouched as low as she could as the wind pummeled them from seemingly all directions at once, and Garadros struggled to gain altitude and turn effectively. They had almost reached city hall by the time he finally banked south, and Serrane feared they might crash into the Gray Citadel on their way to the harbor.
Fortunately, her wyvern could see through the storm better than she could. She allowed him to guide them rather than the other way around, and soon they were soaring several hundred feet above the harbor. Despite the low visibility, a few fortuitous gaps in the fog gave her a bird’s-eye view of the walls and the river. The situation wasn’t as dire as it could have been, but it was bad enough.
“Le’thos,” she hissed as she tried to shield her eyes with her forearm and squint against the wind. The bulk of the Vorsalosian fleet was still anchored few hundred yards downriver, but a half dozen caravels appeared to be on course for the harbor. She couldn’t believe that their sails hadn’t torn in the wind; the Inquisitrix’s new channelers must have been protecting the vessels somehow. A steady stream of wyverns launched from the decks of the larger ships, and they were blasting away at the shimmering blue barriers protecting the most vulnerable portions of the southern wall. Occasionally, she would spot another flicker in the dark as the enemy rained magical fire down upon a barricade or watchtower deeper within the city.
I won’t be able to shoot anything through this wind unless I’m right on top of it, she thought to herself. Maybe the Inquisitrix really does just want to whittle us down and wreak havoc in the middle of the night.
Tugging on the reins, Serrane steered Garadros west along the wall until they reached the command post where the knights were busy projecting the barrier. Landing was trickier than normal—the roads were so icy she worried that Garadros might break a leg, but his mighty talons proved up to the challenge. She should have known better than to doubt him, given that the frosted peaks of the mountains were his natural home.
“There you are!” a familiar voice blurted out. “Escar’s mercy, I thought assassins might have finally gotten to you.”
Serrane turned as Constable Mannick and several of his men emerged from the fog. He looked as harried as Serrane had ever seen him, and not just because several straps on his breastplate were improperly fastened. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was a fresh-faced recruit about to stare down his first cavalry charge. He also looked genuinely relieved to see her, which immediately raised her hackles.
Gods, it is tempting to mock and humiliate him in front of his men. He deserves worse.
“Commander Cassel and I got a good look at the harbor from above,” she called out over the wind, pointing toward the battlements just south of them. “The enemy ships aren’t positioning themselves for an attack.”
Clapping a hand to his helmet as if afraid it might blow away, Mannick’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
“They’re keeping their distance,” Serrane went on. “A few of the caravels are drifting toward the harbor, but the transports are hanging back with the flagship. They don’t look like they plan to unload soldiers anytime soon.”
“Then what are they doing?”
“Testing our resolve, most likely. We’re still not sure how many wyverns they have, but I would guess at least three or four dozen—enough to fly sorties all night.”
The constable visibly clenched his teeth and glanced back at the wall. “They weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow at the earliest!”
“War is unpredictable,” Serrane said, turning and raising her voice enough that the soldiers on the walltop could hear her. “But we’ve been preparing for this all wee
k. Every man here knows what he needs to do. This is our city, and we’re ready for anything that bitch wants to throw at us!”
None of soldiers cheered or anything so dramatic, but she saw plenty of encouraged nods and resolved scowls. This was the moment where a leader’s reputation was put to the test. Every single member of the Highwind Guard had heard about her exploits at Icewatch and about the destruction of the hatchery in the mountains. With luck, those stories would bolster their resolve.
The Darkwind soldiers were more difficult to gauge. There were hundreds of them positioned along the wall here just like she had ordered. Half-orcs with spears and shields, drow with swords and crossbows, even a few imposing minotaur with axes the size of tree trunks. Most of them didn’t even turn to look at her.
Serrane almost couldn’t believe that such a motley army hadn’t already turned upon itself. Never in a million lifetimes would she have possibly predicted that this would be the force defending her adopted home against a religious fanatic. Highwind had a well-deserved reputation for wealth and prosperity, but also for deep-seated divisions. Perhaps this really was an era of change in more ways than one.
“I need to get back in the air,” Serrane said, lifting the reins. “I’ll try to contain the—”
“Incoming!”
The warning shout came from farther down the wall, and Serrane turned just in time to see three wyverns materialize from the fog just over the river. The beasts and their riders streaked toward the wall in a tight arrow-shaped formation, allowing a single channeler to project a shimmering Aetheric barrier over all three mounts. The other two riders unleashed a barrage of fireballs as they strafed overhead, but Julian and his men were up to the challenge: the flaming spheres splashed harmlessly against the knights’ barriers like water splitting over stone.
“Gods protect us,” Mannick breathed as he crouched down behind the battlements. “My men can’t even fire back in this fucking fog!”
“Calm down, would you?” Serrane scolded as she watched the trio of wyverns soar over the city. “Panicking isn’t going to help anyone.”
“Neither is sitting here with our thumbs up our asses,” the constable growled. “Where in the bloody void is that dragon? He was supposed to—”
The words had barely escaped the man’s lips before a deep roar thundered across the sky. For just a moment, the whole world went quiet. Then Serrane caught a glimpse of Jorem’s massive silhouette in the distance. A brilliant cone of fire erupted from his maw, illuminating half the damn city as it incinerated one of the wyverns. The others split off in opposite directions, but she quickly lost sight of them in the fog.
“We have a dragon,” Serrane said, raising her voice again. “We have the Knights of the Silver Fist. We have an army that’s ready to fight tooth and nail to drive this bitch back to the sea! Now, who is with me?”
This time, the soldiers didn’t hold back their cheers. She had no doubt that plenty of them still feared the dragon—who wouldn’t?—but they also knew what Jorem was capable of. Despite the cold wind and the murky fog and the scores of enemy wyverns darting through the darkness, these men still had hope.
And it was her job to keep it kindled.
“Hold the line, Gerrard,” Serrane told him. “I’ll do everything I can to keep those flyers off you. Just make sure your men are ready to fire whenever they get the chance.”
Mannick’s lip twisted as if a thousand different emotions were vying for supremacy over his face. “We’ll be ready,” he said eventually. “Escar watch over you, General.”
Serrane lifted her eyes to share one final, knowing glance with Julian. Every trial they had faced these last two months, from Icewatch to Hastien’s Fall to the hatchery to the siege, had all led to this moment. She should have been terrified or at the very least nervous, but all she felt right now was grim determination. They were going to hold the line, not just for Highwind and its people, but for the entire Northern Reaches.
And for their unborn child.
“Aether protect us,” she whispered. “Let’s finish this.”
7
The Battle for Highwind
“All things considered, I preferred fighting the Inquisitrix and her army of fanatics back on a tropical island,” Valuri grumbled into her scarf as a gust of wind whipped through the street. “Gods, it’s even colder than Icewatch here.”
“I’m more worried about the fog than the cold,” Jorem said. “I’d rather not crash into any buildings if I can help it.”
“I get nauseous enough when you fly straight,” she muttered. “Maybe I should just walk to the walls…”
Valuri had only been outside for a few minutes, but she already wanted to run back into Serrane’s estate and curl up by the fireplace. They were a few blocks away from the Duskwatch Lodge, in Jorem’s usual “landing zone,” and Kaseya was theoretically on her way back from the stables with the special dragon saddle the rangers had designed. Valuri wasn’t overly thrilled at the prospect of testing it out in the middle of a blizzard, but anything had to be better than holding onto Kaseya’s waist for dear life.
Several explosions sounded in the distance, followed by the screeches of wyverns and the screams of terrified people. Valuri hoped that Serrane’s rangers would be able to contain the chaos, because it would spread quicker than any flames—especially when the Senosi inevitably got involved.
Kaseya emerged from the frozen fog a few moments later, an enormous saddle slung over her shoulders. It looked like a much larger version of the one Serrane used on Garadros.
“I should have insisted we practice with this before using it in battle,” Kaseya said, scowling as she set the saddle down. “An amazon should never be unprepared…”
“It wasn’t ready this morning,” Valuri reminded her. “Besides, you and I both prefer riding bareback anyway.”
Kaseya frowned. “I do not under—”
“Let’s just hope it fits,” Jorem interrupted. “And that I can actually do this when it counts.”
“You’ve never had trouble performing under pressure before,” Valuri said with a sly grin. “That’s the one and only nice thing I’ll ever say about you.”
He didn’t even snicker, which told her everything she needed to know about his current mental state. His brown eyes had been heavy with doubt ever since the alarm bells had started ringing, and she knew how much pressure he was putting on himself even if he didn’t say anything. He was the Dragon of Highwind and the first Wyrm Lord in generations—that was a big responsibility after spending a lifetime living in the cisterns of Vorsalos and doing everything possible to avoid attention.
“Hey, don’t overthink it,” she said, reaching out and squeezing his arm. “You’ve transformed every day since the siege. Just pretend you’re about to take us for another morning joyride.”
Jorem turned his head back to look at her, and a bit of the tension seemed to drain out of his face. He was annoyingly cute when he was anxious and vulnerable—almost as cute as when he was holding her down and ramming his cock into her cunt. If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.
“Stand back,” Jorem warned as he pulled off his jacket. “Let’s find out what we’re dealing with.”
Even now, after watching him change shape several times, Valuri still didn’t quite believe it. The way patches of red scales crawled over his pink flesh, the way his bones cracked and popped into new shapes, the way he grew moment by moment until he was the size of a house—she had seen all sorts of twisted sorcery while policing the underworld in Vorsalos, but this…this wasn’t even in the same plane of existence.
This was power—ancient, primal, breathtaking power. The kind that broke unbreakable rules. The kind that destroyed entire civilizations and built new ones to take their place. Maybe this was why Valuri had been so inexplicably attracted to a spindly sorcerer from the sewers of Vorsalos in the first place.
At the very least, it probably explains why he’s always tasted so good.
>
Jorem’s quaking roar thundered across the city once he had fully transformed. The pupils of his orange-yellow eyes narrowed as he peered through the fog, and Valuri wondered what he could perceive that she couldn’t. Her Senosi powers allowed her to see quite far in the dark, but he had the full senses of a dragon at his disposal.
“Help me put this on,” Kaseya said, grabbing hold of the saddle. Throwing it over Jorem’s scaly shoulders and fitting it into place was every bit as awkward and cumbersome as Valuri had imagined, especially since they were in such a rush. She could practically feel the sand sliding through the hourglass. Every second they lost gave the Inquisitrix’s forces more time to wreak havoc uncontested…
But they finished as quickly as humanly possible, and once the saddle was strapped down, Valuri had to admit that having her legs secured by leather loops made her feel about a thousand times safer than holding onto whatever she could grab. She checked her crossbows as she settled in behind Kaseya, though she had no idea how she was going to shoot anything in this storm. Maybe they would get lucky and Jorem would just annihilate the entire fleet for them.
Shit, this was going to be so cold…
“Here we go,” Kaseya said, smiling as she grabbed the reins. As always, she was enjoying this far too much for Valuri’s comfort.
“Red, you better make sure you—ahhh!”
Valuri’s snapped her mouth shut and clutched the amazon’s waist when Jorem abruptly rushed forward and leapt into the air. His mighty wings stirred up a whirlwind of snow around them, and she closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer to gods she didn’t believe in just in case they felt like helping. A hurricane of frozen air whipped around them, and her ears popped in protest as they swiftly gained altitude.
Once she finally mustered the courage to reopen her eyes, Valuri swept her gaze over the length of the city. From above, the scattered pockets of flame and destruction didn’t look quite as severe or as rampant as she had feared. Hopefully, that meant that Serrane’s rangers were doing their jobs properly—and making sure the drow did theirs.